GREENFIELD — On the same day the mayor signed the $9.4 million grant for a new public library, a petition that has the power to kill the library was submitted to the Clerk’s Office.
The petition may now lead to a citywide vote at this November’s mayoral election on whether residents once and for all want to approve a $19.5 million public library.
Steven Ronhave, the former Town Councilor from 2012 to 2015, submitted a petition in protest of the City Council’s March vote to approve the financing of a new public library.
According to City Clerk Kathy Scott, the submitted petition had 352 total signatures. She announced Wednesday that her office had certified 308 signatures and the names of qualified voters. Ronhave has until the end of the week — 30 days from the council’s vote to approve the library — to obtain a total of 319 signatures, which is 10 percent of the voters from the last biennial election.
Ronhave did not immediately return calls for comment Wednesday; and when reached Tuesday night, he declined to comment on his petition beyond the fact that he was collecting signatures and planned to submit them this week.
If the petition is ruled valid, the Greenfield City Council will likely take up what will amount to a re-vote on the library at its May meeting, before potentially going to the ballot box this November.
“The positive spin is the state grant has been solidified for Greenfield at this point,” Joe Ruggeri, lead fundraiser for the library campaign and a member of the library’s board of trustees, said. “It’s not going somewhere else. Now, Greenfield has the time to figure out if this is what it wants.”
The council will have the ability to either decide it doesn’t want a new library after all or if it wants to send it to the ballot box in November; the council does not have the ability to simply reaffirm it wants a new library without putting it to the voters.
In the instance that Greenfield residents agree that the city should finance a new public library then plans will continue on undisturbed — and the issue will likely be put to bed.
If residents vote against the library, the city will have to give back the state grant money with interest. The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners will issue its first allotment of the grant, $1.9 million, shortly. Mayor William Martin said he plans on placing that money into an account that will accrue interest.
The library project works in coordination with a new fire station, as well, Martin has said.
Funds to build a new library will be used to remove the fire station — while likely holding onto historical elements. This cost savings would help the city better afford building a new fire station, which the chief has for years advocated, at the proposed Beacon and Riddell streets location.
Securing a new library has been in the works for years, with three attempts to qualify for a state grant to help fund the building.
After receiving word this summer from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners about the $9.4 million grant, a grassroots campaign, with several prominent political figures in Greenfield at its head, was mounted to push through a vote of the council to approve the library.
In December, the City Council was poised to vote in favor of the new library. A packed Greenfield High School cafeteria hung onto every word of the council’s attempt, but the decision of Precinct 1 Councilor Verne Sund, the key perceived swing vote, to vote down the library put the whole plan on hold.
This led to City Council President Karen “Rudy” Renaud and At-Large Councilor Isaac Mass to hash out a deal that they labeled as a grand compromise.
In exchange for Mass’ library vote, the council would support relaxed commercial zoning. The zoning change, which better allows for gas stations and fast food, was seen as a way to stimulate the economy to help offset a perceived challenge the city could not afford a new public library; the mayor and independent financial advisors told the council the city could.
On March 20, the council approved the deal, voting narrowly in favor of the library and zoning changes.
Two days after the vote, sprawlbuster Al Norman, who adamantly opposed the “compromise” feeling that a side of the conversation was left out, submitted a citizen’s referendum petition.
The petition was deemed invalid at first glance by city officials, but that led to an onslaught of dialogue around the referendum process that had been quietly changed in 2017.
Mass said at the time that Norman’s wager that citizens can pause votes of the council potentially until a November election was a “dangerous game” if true. When commenting March 27, Mass suggested the referendum process could kill the library because it would cause the city to miss the April 30 deadline to accept the grant.
After legal opinions and consultations with state officials, Martin confirmed this week he can sign — as he did Wednesday — the $9.4 million library grant, even though it could still be upended by a vote of residents in November.
In January, Council Vice President Penny Ricketts suggested it may make the most sense to put the library to a special election.
“Am I taking a huge leap of faith? Perhaps,” Ricketts said in January. “I’m seeing Greenfield turning the corner on low voter turnout. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that people were heard.”
The special election turned out to not be a plausible path to follow, but it may turn out the library question ultimately will come down to a vote of its residents at a citywide election this November.
“If it goes to referendum, the town will speak,” Ruggeri said. “It will have its say.”
You can reach Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264